KENNY Richey is set for the final chapter in his 21-year fight for
freedom today, as a US court prepares to send him home to Scotland.
Ending a controversial legal saga that has kept him behind bars for
nearly half his life, the 43-year-old will stand before a judge in
Ohio to formalise a plea deal that he had previously vowed he would
never take.

He will plead "no contest" to the involuntary manslaughter and
endangerment of Cynthia Collins, his former girlfriend's two-year-old
daughter, who died when her home i Columbus Grove, Ohio, was torched
in 1985.

The charges are based on a prosecution assertion that he had agree to
babysit the child that night but failed to do so, resulting in her
death when flames swept the apartment where she was sleeping alone.

They replace the counts of murder and arson that had previously held
him directly responsible for setting the fire that killed her, and
for which he was sentenced to die by lethal injection in January 1987.

He will today be sentenced to 21 years in prison, which he has
already served, and released.

"It's the day we have fought for, hoped for, dreamed of, and lived
for," said his father, Jim Richey, 69.

He added: "I have almost lost count of the number of times they were
close to putting that needle in his arm. It has been a rollercoaster
journey, and it's going to be hard to believe it's finally stopped."

Waiting for him back home in Edinburgh will be his mother, Eileen,
who has prepared her son's bedroom ready for his homecoming, 27 years
after he left the city to live in America.

"She is very excited to be able to hold her son in her arms for the
first time since 1984. She is looking forward to being able to sit
and talk with him face to face, and spend time with him," said Karen
Torley, of Cambuslang, Glasgow, who has led the campaign for Richey's
freedom.

"Here we have a mother who has been through the emotional wringer for
21 years, and now the end is in sight. She can hardly believe it is
happening at long last.

"She has been let down so many times in the past with false hopes,
and she has dared to hope and believe that now Kenny is really coming
home. She won't quite believe it until he walks towards her at the
airport."

Richey was convicted and sentenced to death in January 1987. For the
next 20 years, his case bounced around the US judicial system as he
insisted that he had nothing to do with Cynthia's death, that the
prosecution evidence was flawed and that his original trial lawyer
was incompetent.

The US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit overturned his
conviction and sentence in August last year, based on a legal
technicality, and he was taken off death row.

Despite holding American citizenship as well as British, Richey must
leave the US within 24 hours as part of the deal with prosecutors,
though he has the right to return at any time.

He will board a flight back to the UK tomorrow, where he will be
reunited with his mother, and lucrative media deals brokered by
publicity guru Max Clifford.





Richey to be sentenced to 21 years today – and set free - Scotsman.com News